


Space Ghosts

by bluebox_dragon



Series: On the Spectrum Verse [1]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Autistic Keith, Hunk is helpful, this will probably get a sequel of some sorts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-14
Updated: 2017-08-14
Packaged: 2018-12-15 09:18:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,275
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11803083
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluebox_dragon/pseuds/bluebox_dragon
Summary: “Hello?” He called, he didn’t mean to be loud, but with the complete lack of other noise, not even the slight hum of working machinery like upstairs, his voice carried painfully loudly.No reply.“If there’s a space ghost, I’d really like it if you showed yourself.” He winced at his volume again, “Please?”Again, there was no reply. Which obviously meant space ghosts.“Um, I’d rather not get haunted. So, I’m just, uh,” He motioned back to the illuminated hallway behind him. But the space ghost probably didn’t understand human gesturing, “Go back the way I came?”-------------Hunk and Keith bond over ancient music.





	Space Ghosts

**Author's Note:**

> So I am autistic, and am projecting on Keith. If you feel I've done anything disrespectfully, please let me know!!
> 
> This is so not edited.

As far as Hunk was concerned, his life could not possibly get any weirder than it already was. He lived on a spaceship, fought aliens using magic robots, and used space mice as engineering helpers. While he wasn’t complaining, he certainly wasn’t considering anything normal. At this point, he figured that nothing would phase him, not even space ghosts.

But then again, as soon as he thought that, he life would always get weirder. 

—————

The castle, as far as being a spaceship goes, was pretty damn impressive. The castle, as far as being navigate-able goes, was not as impressive. Maybe if Hunk could read Altean than his midnight wanderings would end differently. He considered learning Altean, but between training, battles, fixing up the castle, and whatever project Pidge dragged him into, he truly didn’t have the time. 

Hunk figured that if he read enough of the signage in the castle and tried to figure out what it means, than he would probably pick up some Altean, but this night, his theory had only led him to a section of the castle he had never seen before— and he had no clue how to get back. Maybe the space mice would come save him, they owed him after he washed their dirty little butts.

This deep in the castle, the lights were slower to turn on, and the air had an odd quality to it. It smelled almost musty, but not quite; the Altean equivalent of untouched air. It wasn’t as bad here as in some of the parts Hunk had explored, possibly one of his teammates had explored the way Hunk was now. He’d ask them at breakfast, if they showed up.

Recently, breakfast had become a solitary affair, with only Coran being a consistent attendee. Keith had only ever shown up at Shiro’s insistence (Hunk had a feeling that Keith was Not a morning person); Lance had taken to swimming in the mornings and eating after that, he had become a lot more interested in fitness after everything had happened; Pidge had never shown up to breakfast to begin with, and Hunk usually brought her her breakfast once he finished his. 

So, he figured his question would probably go unanswered. Another five or so minutes of wandering down the corridor passed, and so far, the only doors that he was able to open looked to be empty storefronts. It was an entire city down here, with abandoned storefronts, empty offices, and once, what appeared to be a series of classrooms, if the giant electronic whiteboards and rows of chairs were anything to go by. 

When he turned the corner of the hallway, the lights were all ready illuminated, indicating that either he had all ready been down this way, or someone else was down here. He wasn’t sure, but he hadn’t thought he had crossed back on his path at all during this night trip, which made the sudden appearance of light in front of him all the more surprising. And made the likely hood of space ghosts suddenly all the higher. 

“Hello?” He called, he didn’t mean to be loud, but with the complete lack of other noise, not even the slight hum of working machinery like upstairs, his voice carried painfully loudly.

No reply.

“If there’s a space ghost, I’d really like it if you showed yourself.” He winced at his volume again, “Please?”

Again, there was no reply. Which obviously meant space ghosts.

“Um, I’d rather not get haunted. So, I’m just, uh,” He motioned back to the illuminated hallway behind him. But the space ghost probably didn’t understand human gesturing, “Go back the way I came?” 

Still no reply. Hunk was no space ghost expert, but he assumed that the ghost would have shown itself by now. At least, thats what all of the TV shows Lance had forced him to watch back at the garrison seemed to imply. He expected at least a little bit of rattling chains or moaning. Of course, space ghosts didn’t need to play by earth ghost rules, so he was completely in the dark about how to proceed. 

A soft rustling echoed through the hallway, amplified by the soft lights and silence the same way Hunk’s voice had been. Hunk froze, because, obviously the space ghost wanted something from him. He started moving towards the noise, which seemed to be coming from a door off to his left, or maybe his right, honestly he still used his hands to tell the directions. A quick glance down at the L-shapes he made with his hand confirmed that the sound did in fact come from his left. The first door that he tried was empty, as was the second. Outside the third door, he could hear the rustling again, like someone rolling over.

“Uh, space ghost? I’m gonna come in?” Hunk called, before turning the handle, the lights fading up as he entered.

It was, not, in fact, a space ghost. It was a Keith, which was honestly just as illusive. Keith was laying on his stomach on the floor head buried under his arms, and didn’t acknowledge the fact that Hunk had walked in on him.

“Oh. Keith. Hi,” Still no response, “Keith? You ok? Oh my god, are you possessed by a space ghost?” Unlikely, but Hunk still needs to cover all of his bases. Finally, this got Keith to turn his head to the side, so that one eye looked up at Hunk.

“I’m not possessed.” Then he turned his head back down.

“Well, are you ok?” Not that Keith didn’t do odd things all the time, but laying down in the middle of a room in the abandoned part of the castle was worrying behaviour for anyone. And if there was anything Hunk was good at, it was worrying.

Keith nodded into his arms, but didn’t look up again.

“Uh, what are you doing?” Hunk didn’t want to intrude, but he did want to know what Keith was doing.

“Meditating.” Came the reply.

“Aren’t you supposed to do that sitting up?”

“I dunno. I suppose.” But he made no effort to sit up.

“Well, why are you laying down?” Hunk had found that the best way to get answers was to be as blunt as possible. It worked wonders.

“I dunno.” Apparently Keith wasn’t in a talking mood. Which was too bad, because Hunk was. He sat down next to Keith's head, and crossed his legs. Trying to figure out what he was gonna say, he opened and closed his mouth a couple times. But Keith beat him to it.

“Are you gonna be loud?” Keith’s voice was still unnaturally soft, Hunk didn’t think his volume meter even went that low.

“Uh, I’ll try not to be. Did you come down here to be in the quiet?” Hunk made his voice as gentle as possible, so as to respect why Keith came down here in the first place.

“Yeah.” Keith nodded his head, still covering his whole face with his sleeves. 

“You wanna sit up? I’ll be quiet if you wanna talk?” The situation was making Hunk nervous, Keith was often quiet, but usually he was brooding, and not this. Hunk didn’t even know what this was. 

“You made the lights come back on.” Oh. Thats why Keith was face down. 

“I can turn them off, if you want.” This statement made Keith tense up.

“You can turn them off? I’ve been trying since we got here to make them go away. I can’t figure out how to do it.” But Keith was not a genius engineer, so Hunk wasn’t surprised he didn’t find the, admittedly rather permanent, off switch.

“Yeah, I got you buddy. One sec.” Hunk stood back up and crossed the doorway. He pulled a screwdriver out of the pocket of his cargos, and popped open the panel to the side of the palm scanner. Two cuts later, and the lights in the room wouldn’t be turning on for a very long time. The glow from the hallway spilled underneath the door, leaving enough light for Hunk to find his way back to his sitting position next to Keith’s head.

“Hey, the lights are off now, you can sit up if you wanna.” Hunk said, still modulating his voice to meet Keith’s needs. 

“Thanks.” Keith mumbled as he pushed himself into a sitting position, still looking straight down at the floor. “It’s just so bright upstairs.”

“So you come down here to get away from it?” Hunk asked. Keith nodded, but didn’t turn his gaze away from the floor. 

“Well, the lights in this room won’t be coming on for a very long time, so if you can find this room again, it’ll still be dark.” Hunk beamed at Keith, even though Keith was looking no where near him. 

“I like that. Thank you.” Keith tapped his fingers against the floor. There was some sort of pattern to it, but Hunk couldn’t discern it just yet. The pattern repeated, and Hunk gave up trying to categorize it for the moment.

Hunk could appreciate quiet when he was alone, but a lack of chatter between two people in a room always drove him crazy.

“What’s that pattern?” He was curious, it sounded almost familiar, but he couldn’t name it. This might have been the wrong question to ask, as Keith tensed up, drawing his hand back into his lap, and shaking his head.

“Hey, hey. I’m just curious, you don’t need to stop!” But his protest didn’t seem to do anything to ease the tension, until Keith’s head came up a bit, his gaze now focused on the wall behind Hunk.

“Ukrainian Bell Carrol.” He mumbled. That was a bad habit of Keith’s that Hunk had noticed, the second he got uncomfortable, it was like he forgot how to communicate. But he didn’t dwell on that, instead focusing on the fact that he knew the song Keith was talking about.

“Hey, I know that.” He hummed a few bars of the melody, and Keith finally looked at him, a little shocked. The song was absolutely ancient, so Hunk could understand the surprise. 

 

“I,” Keith looked back down at his lap, “Can you keep going?” That was not what Hunk had expected him to say. But he acquiesced, repeating the melody that he had learned in elementary school orchestra.

Keith looked content, closing his eyes, and tapping his fingers on the ground again, this time, Hunk could see where each finger was a different note, taptaptaptap taptaptaptap. Hunk trailed off his humming, and looked at Keith, who still had his eyes closed.

“How do you know that song, Keith?” Hunk was curious, as far as he knew, it was really only ever used in orchestra classes, and even then rarely. Hunk didn’t exactly pin Keith as the ‘orchestra kid’ type.

“Shiro.” Came the reply. Hunk was about to ask for clarification, but then Keith continued his sentence. “A couple summers ago, Shiro and I decided to learn Russian.” 

“Oh, you just decided to learn Russian?” Hunk couldn’t really judge, he’s once just decided to build a functioning 1:60 model of a spaceship.

“Yeah, Shiro loved— loves that shit. He speaks like eight Earth languages, and at least three from out here, that I know of.”

“Oh wow. Thats pretty impressive.” Hunk interjected.

“Yeah,” Keith smiled, “Anyways, we were learning Russian, and Shiro decided that classical Russian music was appropriate. I really, really liked this one. So I’ve kept listening to it.” Keith’s face fell towards the end of his sentence.

“But you don’t have a copy of the song out here do you?” Hunk asked. Keith shook his head, the rocked forwards, towards Hunk. Hunk reached a hand out to put on Keith’s shoulder looking to comfort him, then paused. “Can I touch you?”

“No thanks.” Hunk had hoped for, but hadn’t expected a different answer. Keith didn’t like touch, he shied away from hugs, and casual touch. Usually, the only person who made contact with Keith outside of training was Shiro, but obviously that wasn’t happening right now. 

“Ok, no touching,” He paused, trying to script his sentence, “How can I help you feel better?” 

Keith pulled his knees into his chest, and shifted his weight, left to right, then right to left. Back and forth, not really rocking, but moving his muscles just enough that Hunk could tell he was moving. Hunk wasn’t versed enough in Keith’s body language to tell if this was a good or bad sign.

“You’re already helping, Hunk.” So the rocking was a good thing. Hunk Smiled, checked his watch and made to stand up.

“Its almost time for the normal people to get up, wanna head back up to the common areas with me?” He asked.

“Uh, yeah. We should probably get back.” Keith unfolded himself, and Hunk held out a hand to help him up, if he wanted it. To his surprise, Keith took his hand, and hauled himself upright. Even more surprising was the fact that Keith didn’t let go of his hand once he was standing.

“You don’t have to…” Hunk motioned at their conjoined hands. Keith turned towards hims, but didn’t make eye contact.

“I want to.” He smiled at the wall behind Hunk, “I know you like it.”

Hunk grinned and swung their hands slightly as they turned out into the hallway and began the slow winding walk back up to the inhabited areas of the castle.

“We should do this again sometime, yeah?” He asked, squeezing Keith’s hand slightly.

“Yeah,” Keith returned the squeeze, “We should.”


End file.
